Mrs. Flinger: A work in progress

UPDATE TO Mrs. Flinger October 16, 2015

Because the Universe has a wicked sense of humor, after this delcaration, my blog threw up all over my last upgrade.

So I'm starting over using Craft. Turning 40 and kid entering Jr High next year, sometimes it's just time for a change. These archives will still exist in the way the last child goes off to college and their room is the same for 20 years,
but it's just time to move forward.

On being humbled May 31, 2011

A letter came in the mail today. I was reminded about a generation so much greater than ours. While we are sending emails, incapable of being bothered by the post-office, my Great Aunt Marcy sent my son a card for his 4th birthday. It’s not just a card this time, it’s a reminder. When she lost her husband of 50 years I couldn’t be bothered to send a single thing while she, in return, never once forgets a birthday of her great, great grandnephew. I couldn’t bear to open the card and see only, “Love Aunt Marcy” instead of adding “and Uncle Charles” to the second row.

I stood at the back door and cried.

Earlier today I was reminded that while I have “friends” on facebook I don’t know what they’re up to. People are having babies, graduating, changing jobs. All while I sit and stare at a computer screen 8 hours a day and wrangle children in my “spare” time. There is a book deal! There is traveling! There are speaking proposals to be done! And yet, my kitchen sits neglected, my friends grow entire human beings and my children await another year of life and summer and fall.

My Uncle Charles died while I was in the middle of a travel spree earlier this year. His life was a good one, he was a strong man, although handicapped by a motor cycle accident many years before I was born (the least reason of which I refuse to let Mr. Flinger purchase one of those death traps). I knew him as 100% amazing, strong and intelligent, always a proud father and grandfather, uncle and husband. He was old forever, since I was ten perhaps, endlessly aging at an impossibly slow rate. He would live forever, I thought, because they do: Your family. They live forever and you forget how short and unforgiving life truly is. Thirty years is nothing to someone in their fifties. They’ve conquered teen-age years, early adult, middle age. They are forever etched in their families mind as equally old: always the same, un-aging until the day they suddenly die reminding you of reality.

So it was that I did not make my Uncle Charle’s funeral. Traveling from Dallas, to return to Austin for SXSW, there was little time between. San Antonio felt a decade away, a rent-a-car, two young children unable to see their own mom. My Aunt had her family, her nieces and nephews, my aunts and uncles, her daughters and sons. She was loved and my Great Uncle Charles was rejoiced and I, from afar, joined them. Until this moment I did not think twice. My family needed me home. My work needed me present. My children wanted their own mother.

Still, only two months later, a card arrived reminding me that I will never be your Aunt Marcy. I will not ever fill the shoes of my Grandmother. I will not walk in the ways of those so much more wise, those who love beyond the now, those who see beyond the years. There is reason to live close to those who age before you: to live near extended family. To understand the wisdom of years and wrinkles that we can only imagine. At mid-thirty my age feels heavy. I feel the burden of time. Speaking to those whose lives span eternal decades remind me: a card, though simple, scribbled with ink, and stuck with a “forever” stamp, is more than just a card. It is an entire mindset of love and forgiveness: One I hope to live up to one day.

My son is four today. I’m officially 48 months postpartum. See also: WTF and HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? May 20, 2011

Last night as you were falling asleep, you could barely keep your eyes open (much like your mother after 9pm on two glasses of wine) and you asked for your story. “You want to know about the day you were born?”

Your eyes lit up and you stuck your tongue out in that way you do when you get excited and I think you’re sort of proving evolution isn’t just a theory.

“It was a sunny day a lot like today was,” you don’t get the irony in my voice but I chuckle. “I took your sister to soccer and then to get a hair cut.” I look at your scraggly hair and feel terrible that you’ve had two real hair cuts in your life. “Grandma and Grandpa came up to visit and we all went out to dinner. While we were at dinner, it was becoming apparent you weren’t going to wait the last four weeks before coming out to play with us. That night we went to the hospital and you were born early.”

“The doctors helped you learn how to breathe and eat and you got strong and grew. We got to go home a little while later.”

Your breathing got heavier and your eyes closed. I stroked your hair as you fell asleep next to me like you do nearly every night. As I got up to leave, you turned to me to do your goodbye routine. You always wave, blow a kiss, and say I love you in sign language. You’ll remind me, loudly, if I ever forget the routine before I leave you. I wave, blow a kiss and show the I love you back as I close the door to your bedroom and your third year. Kiddo: Here’s to four.

Noise May 17, 2011

My Grandfather was an electrician in a mill. He often explained his lack of hearing from years of being around loud machines. “GRANDPA! TURN DOWN THE TEE VEE!” He would wave a hand in our direction, mutter something completely incomprehensible and turn the volume on the TV up.

Last weekend a friend of mine spoke of reducing the noise in his life. As a single man who enjoys many activities outside the computer, I thought it was a strange, though admirable, statement. So often the level of noise in my life is beyond was I can tolerate. Children whining and needing immediate attention pulling on my arm, Co-Workers on IM, twitter, facebook, email, friends asking about this weekend. It’s not that the noise is bad, each in of itself, it’s that together there isn’t a single conversation occurring in full. The noise fractures my relationships in to compartments. Not a single person gets my full attention.

Having the opportunity to be with people in real life, to sit across a table with community members from work, to enjoy watching the children throw rocks in the water with a friend, to sit together as a family each night at dinner, helps. It helps bring the level of noise to something manageable. But during each of these interactions there is almost always a phone, a computer, a noise-producer. I’m pondering the long term effect on our relationships and if one day I’ll be waving my arm in the general direction of those I love muttering things they don’t understand.

The Future of Web and Visions of Equality May 16, 2011

For years I’ve been a minority in our field. In graduate school I was one of two females. The program pushed Java but I studied PHP and my co-female-student studied XML. Why is that? Why would the two women select another language than the standard object oriented fare served to the students? Is it possible there is a feminine friendly language that helps retain women in computer science?

This is the future of our field. The is the future of the web. Bringing technology, the joy of development, the art of mobile application development: these are the true places women can excel and find balance in a male dominated field.

WebVisions 2011 is about “exploring the future of the web” and I can see no better reason to join those who are passionate about the future of a field we’re growing from the ground up. After ten years of developing sites and recently joining the dev team at EllisLab, Inc., the chance to attend WebVisions is a dream come true. That and because Aaron Gufstason is begging me.

But maybe I can be your sunshine? May 06, 2011

He watches the truck with a camper pass us on the road. “I wanna go camping again. Are we EVER going to go camping again?” My three year old is a drama queen sometimes. I laugh. “Yes, we’ll go camping, I promise. We’ll go when it gets sunny again.”

“It’s NEVER going to be sunny again!” He whines. He also loves to whine.

“Hey, I’m wearing yellow! Maybe I can be your sunshine?” he beams a little.

He starts to point out all the yellow. There’s a yellow sign! And a yellow truck! And yellow flowers!

Suddenly there is so much yellow that he declares it is a sunny day even as I turn on the windshield wipers.

Sometimes he seems to know exactly what I need; even before I do.

Evaluation May 03, 2011

“She is very bright. Intelligent and creative; loving and kind. She seems to be a natural in math and science but her artistic abilities and imagination give her a great balance. She’s very social. She is unaware of the politics of other girls in her grade. She is a tender soul who can not sit still.

She has trouble focusing and might need some work in this area. She is often tired in the afternoon. She seems young for her age.

Overall she is a joy to work with. While she is a bit bouncy and can have difficult finishing a task before starting another, making her very inefficient, she’s got a lot of potential and you should be proud of her.”

As it turns out? She really is my kid.

Even if she doesn’t look it.

On being S.A.D. May 02, 2011

The heat kicks back on and I know it won’t warm me. The walk to the car will be wet and cold. I wear a layer of my body like an extra coat of energy, just waiting, hoping to be used. I drink another cup of coffee and turn the heat as high as I can while I drive. I will struggle with children, putting coats and hoods and boots on and splashing back to the car again. The effort nearly crushes me.

It is May. The realization nearly takes my breath away.

It is May.

Seattle just finished the coldest April on record. Even after two amazingly sunny days this weekend, we return to the usual rain and high of 55 degrees.

You can watch for signs of failures, you can talk about becoming better at your job, or at parenting, or about being healthier phsyically. But one day you might notice that you can’t crawl out of bed and you don’t want to get dressed. Suddenly your bones have been cold for months and the brightest lights in the house can’t make you “snap out of it.” While this isn’t true for everyone, I know it’s harder for some of us than others.

The things we pay attention to, always asking if it is affecting our work or our kids or our families, might not be the thing that takes us down in the end. Four months of weepy, moody, lethargic days eventually pay their price.

Work, Family, Life. Right now, in this cold dreary day, the effort nearly crushes me.

Chicks, Bunny Ears and Sugar. (This is not about the playboy mansion.) Apr 27, 2011

Like last year, the year before that, and the year prior to that and so on, it rained on Easter here.

Shocker.

I did manage to click some pretty terrible photos with my iPhone for you.

You’re welcome.

Behold! The creepiest bunny in the history of all bunnies!

As we prepared to set out the goods for the children the night before Easter, we discovered some mice pellets in our pantry. Let me rephrase that, WE FOUND OUT WE HAVE MICE IN OUR PANTRY. As in EATING OUR FOOD.

Easter mice: Trumps creepy bunny.

Instead of leaving the candy and goodies on the table for the children, we decided (in a quick act of awesome by yours truly) to write a little riddle and have the children hunt for their Easter Basket Innards. Brilliant, right? (nod yes.)

I wrote the following, clever, did I mention awesom, riddle:

“If you were hot
And looked like gold
You might hide
In someplace cold.”

Oh, how clever I am. CLEVER I SAY. So we hid the stuff in the fridge. That’s all “making lemons from mice pellets” or something. I was oh so proud of myself.

I even signed it “From T.E. Bunny.”

T.E. Get it? T(he) E(aster) Bunny?

Clever, dangit!

I tell you, though, the apple does not fall from the overly-prideful tree. The minute my 6 year old read the note she runs to the fridge, opens it up and exclaims:

“THIS IS IT?!”

Actually, I don’t remember what she said but I think it was pretty condescending coming from a 6 year old who failed to even notice the awesome cleverness of her clever clever mother. Or Bunny. Whatever.

In tradition, we hunted for eggs in the rain.

The secret is to run REALLY REALLY FAST and the rain can’t catch you.

My children are masters at this.

(See from 2009)

In another tradition, there was the mandatory egg shot with the siblings.

See circa 1985:

And now: Circa 2008.

All together now? Ahhhhh.

May your week continue to be filled with chocolate and sun.

And then invite me over.

Sticky Notes Apr 18, 2011

I have these sticky notes. They line my computer background, they clutter my virtual desktop, the travel in my portable office. They are text files I keep open to remind myself of my goals, todo lists, small notes. I have one that I keep open nearly all day, every day. It is titled, “People I want to emulate.”

On this text file I keep a very short list of people I admire and dare to imitate. It’s like my own version of the, “What Would Jesus Do” bracelet.

These are the people that keep me in check. They may or may not even know how often I think about their strength, their wisdom, their spirit. They are leaders by example and in ASCHII all day to someone striving to find her own space, to be her own person, one that someone else might list on a sticky note one day. Perhaps one day I’ll have someone who will want to be like me.